Flowers and a Sleeping Beauty
by sivvussa
Summary: Rewrite of "Sleeping Beauty" in the style of Angela Carter. The story of a woman who had no name, no past, and no future, but spent all her days in a garden without colours.


Flowers and a Sleeping Beauty

A woman stands peacefully inside the painting, a graceful hand extended towards the glass case that encloses her. At her feet, two white peacocks accompany her like maids in waiting. In her other hand, a white rose, plucked daintily from a wall of colourless lilies and blue leaves. She stares at the rose, a small smile crossing her bleached white face, her lips as black as the hair that spills down her dress like a river of marble. Outside of her tiny garden there is nothing- a border of blue, a gradual shading of grey and white into a delicate mist. Her smile remains unchanged, but her eyes belie the expression- for in their dark depths there is no mist, but the smallest reflection of beautiful colour.

Once upon a time (for a tale as tragic as this must begin with these words,) there was a woman who loved her garden. Who she was, she did not know. She simply remembered being, and being here. Her creation- and, indeed, the thought of being a created creature- did not concern her. She had no parents, no family, no brothers or sisters or well-meaning relatives. Her companions were two peacocks, who accompanied her night and day. Their voices were the only ones in that garden, for the woman could not speak. She simply smiled and continued walking through her garden. For as long as she could remember, she had been roaming through the garden, attending to it and admiring it, with the two peacocks in attendance. Her world is almost entirely silent, and made of the colours of the dead- blue, white, and black. These are the only colours that she knows. If she raised a hand to her face, the white marbled flesh would greet her. If she pulled a strand of her hair to her eyes, it would only appear black. The only colour she sees is when she looks at the sky, for nothing can change the colour of the heavenly realms.

The woman walked through her garden, admiring the plants for their delicacy and scent but never for their colour. She idly picked some- a white tulip here, a black chrysanthemum there- but as soon as they are picked the flowers wither and die. She walked on between walls of blue-grey leaves, each perfectly spaced for her and her companions to pass, not noticing as they closed behind her. She walks...

...but she began to walk more slowly, for she was sure something was different. The garden, which was usually so silent, seemed to have a different rhythm to its melody. A dull, distant sound: low, booming, and utterly incomprehensible. She would have felt frightened if she knew what fear was, she would have been excited if the concept was not completely alien to her. Instead, she was merely curious. She resumed her steady pace, not hurrying, until suddenly the walls of the garden fell away and revealed a great expanse of water.

It was blue, and grey. White foam gathered where it caressed the grey land. It surged and swelled, perpetually moving. The blue sky was reflected in its calmer areas and dashed into a thousand fragments in its violent, crashing waves. Destroying and embracing the land and the grey mist, it stretched as far into the distance as the woman could see. She smiled, happy in her silent world, and stood on the shore watching the water.

Time passed- a thousand years, or perhaps a few simple minutes, in the realm where time does not exist. She remained on the shore, her companions peacefully standing at her side. A raft appeared in the waves- wood made grey with wear and sea-salt, a grey and black mass drifting on it. She watched, not moving, as the raft drifted to the shore. The mass moved- it was a strange creature, with two legs and two arms like her own, but different- it had short black hair, and it was larger. She watched it curiously. It's skin was as white as her own, bleached by the salt and deathly illness. The rags that dressed it were colourless.

Hesitating, her curiosity getting the better of her, she walked slowly towards it. She did not know what it was, or what it should look like, but she knew it should move, as she did. She touched its black hair, wondering at the stickiness of the salty mess, and thought of what this creature should be.

At her thought, the creature sat up. It seemed perfectly healthy, perfectly awake, another white porcelain figure in her deathly realm. It looked up at her and moved its mouth. She did not understand the strange sounds, and could not respond, for she was forbidden to speak. A smile crossed her marble-like face as she picked a lily and gave it to the creature. In her hand, it withered- in his, it was a living seed.

The salt-ridden mortal looked at the flower, and then at her. It touched the spot on its head where she had healed it, and smiled. She smiled a reply and watched, once again simply curious. The peacocks nestled at her sides, distracting her. When she looked back, the being was pushing its raft back into the sea. It dwindled to a dot in the waves, and was gone. She did not care; what was past was past. She returned to watching the sea, finding as much interest in its dancing waves than in the mortal who had been there for such a fleeting moment.

Time passed.

Once again, a small dot appeared on the waves. The mortal looked older this time- its hair grey and its skin withered. But it was still perfectly pale, dressed in blue and grey, and this time it had a sense of purpose. She watched it, this withering flower whose eyes held the sea. The mortal stepped out of the grey boat and walked up to her. She smiled, for she was forbidden to speak.

The creature held out its hands. In them was a single, precious red rose. The colour glowed in the world of death, in the whiteness of the mortal's grasp. The woman reached for it, overwhelmed with its glorious beauty, and it remained alive in her hands. She cried out in joy, her voice a chiming bell in the silence.

As one, the peacocks screamed. The woman's joy did not fade, her smile did not die. Her marbled flesh did not move as the flower turned to the purest stone, as white as her skin, as pale as her world, as featureless as death. And there she remained, a statue frozen in time, her two white peacocks frozen in attendance, caught in a world of black, white, and blue.

But in her eyes, that glint of colour. For the woman knows that the rose she smiles at is really red.


End file.
